To My Super Hero Husband

Since this was our first ever anniversary, I thought I'd go all out with a cool gift idea.  I have been planning it out for weeks.....being sick has totally ruined all of that for me.  I didn't get it all put together like I wanted to.....but he loved it and was super happy so I guess that's all the really matters! If I haven't mentioned it before, Josh happens to be Chris Hemsworths biggest fan. Like he has the ultimate man crush on Thor...its actually pretty hilariously cute and funny. I saw a gift idea on pinterest where a wife gave her husband a gift every hour on his birthday at the same time. She did whatever number of gifts and then he got to open each one at 11:08, 12:08, 1:08 etc. I thought that was cute so I thought I'd do 13 total gifts to represent 1 year of marriage and the 13th to represent the future. I let him open them all at once cause it felt silly to wait if we were gonna be out and about all day...
So I decided to theme these gifts as super hero stuff, specifically Thor in honor of the husbands man crush. Let me tell you....there is much memorabilia and knick knacks and such for the Avengers in general, but most everything revolves around the hulk or iron man...neither of which are Thor....this was harder than I planned but I was determined.
So here are the gifts below, each with a description since I never finished the poems that went with each gift. Everything was wrapped in Avenger paper cause that's the closest thing to Thor...

 

 

Here is all of the loot unwrapped.

 

The following are in no particular order....mostly cause I'm lazy and also because that is just way too complicated....

 

 

A Thor CD for my music loving man.  Whether it becomes the soundtrack to your life, or some new music to lay down some sweet new drum recordings for, I hope it's epic.

 

A Thor mousepad for my computer geek.

 

A Thor Hammer car decal, for your beloved FJ.

 

A Thor Bobblehead, because who doesn't need a bobblehead for their desk?

 

 

A Thor mug, for the wonderful husband who makes me coffee since I suck at it and his is the best.

 

 

 

Thor Cologne, so you can smell like the super hero you are.

(I ordered this online because I just couldn't pass it up, especially after reading the description on the box(below).  Whether it smelled terrible or not, he was getting it.  And it smells amazing.  We both love it!)

 

 

 

 

A Thor story book, to gaze at the beautiful pictures of Thor, to one day read to our children, or just to actually get you to read.

 

A custom hand painted Thor Antenna ball, again to deck out the beloved FJ.

 

A Thor armor tee.  To dress like the super hero you are.

 

A Thor USB, to conquer all things on the computer.

 

Thor headphones to listen to your epic music. (And so I don't have to hear it blasting all the time.) 

Thor Stickers.  Jus because.

 

And a Thor puzzle, because you are the missing piece in mine and because we are an ever growing puzzle that I hope is a beautiful piece of art when our lives are through.

 

Happy Anniversary Husband!  Don't know how I'll top this one......guess I'd better get to thinking now!

 

 

 

3 years ago today

it's 12:37 am. i should have been in bed eons ago.  but let's be honest--does one ever sleep the night before what is to be the biggest day of your life? i mostly doubt it.

3 years ago in August, a cute boy came into my equipment room, never said two words, just grinned stupidly while he picked up his equipment. I came home from working football practice.  it was the first night in the history of the world i had come home and OUT LOUD mentioned that i thought a boy was cute.  he had blonde hair and blue eyes and a big goofy grin.  after mom's shock was over, she told me that it might be best not to date someone in the middle of season just in case things didn't work out.....5 days later i woke up to a text message from a number i didn't recognize, from a boy oh so excited to have found my number.

3 years ago on September 16th, 2009. a black jeep followed me home from football practice at 7pm.  my heart nearly jumped out of my chest when i realized it was actually following me into my driveway.  and in it was that blonde haired blue eyed boy, with a big goofy grin on his face.  and he asked me to kiss him. i was so scared and nervous that i avoided it for what felt like ten years, then i finally gave in and swiped my lips across his in less than .02 seconds and quickly ran away like a fool.  the next week i watched a football game at his house.  he took another girl to homecoming and my heart nearly broke. then a few weeks later i began to wonder if i wasn't just a game to him. but i wasn't. cause...

3 years ago on November 4th, 2008, in the parking lot outside of the rockin r ranch after a varsity football banquet, that same blonde haired, blue eyed boy with that cute goofy grin walked me to my car.  told me i was beautiful. and before he closed the door of his jeep, he said the words, "I love you." and drove away.

3 years ago on November 22nd, at a giant 18th birthday bash in my yard, that sweet blonde haired, blue eyed boy brought me pink roses. with a card that read, "someone like you only happens once in a lifetime"

3 years ago, the day after Thanksgiving, I woke up to a text from that blonde haired boy telling me what he thought of me and how we should grow old together.

and

3 years ago today, on December 1st, that same blonde haired, blue eyed boy, with that silly, irresistible grin, sat me down on the couch in the living room of his mom's house and said, "i know the next 6 months will be uncertain, and we may be far away at colleges next year, but would you be willing to take a journey with me to see where it leads? will you be my girlfriend?"

and

here we are, 3 years later on the same day.  again ready to start a new uncertain journey together. the last few years have brought many changes and challenges, many blessings and opportunities.  and i know this new journey will be the same-but this time it is a little bigger, and i get to be the wife :)

I love you Joshua Zahn.  I love our crazy life, where we have been, and where we are going.  I am so proud to be your wife and share another whirlwind journey with you on a grander scale than before.  I am excited to take on this new challenge with you by my side, and to know that as we discover our journey this time, we will be doing it united as one.

Today I will marry my prince charming and begin a new life with my very best friend.  It may be a crazy life, but it will be a wonderful one, and it will be ours.  A life full of love. A life full of laughter.  Everyday. :)


xoxo,
Aly

The Engagement

The post you have been waiting for.......drum roll please........ we're engaged!

As you probably have guessed, our trip to California was aaa-mazing!  After much anticipation and countdown.... We'll need a little bit of background so we'll start from the very beginning of our trip!  Please prepare yourself for a 9 page post and picture overload :) sorry, it must be done!

Uncle Rob and Rhonda came down on Saturday and we had a big family party (at which Josh DIDN'T help me get the groceries and it bugged me... strike one, little did i know, this is where he informed everyone else on planet earth of his giant plan), we stayed up way too late playing wii, and got up wayyyy to early the next morning to go get breakfast before heading out on the road!  We had a blast goofing around in the car the whole ride there!  After we got settled in our hotel we took Rhonda to the beach cause she had never been before! EVER! can you believe this?! it baffled me since she is 30 something and has always lived in the US, so of course us beach loving people HAD to take her! i think we ended up at seal beach about 4ish in the afternoon, it was sunny and a beautiful 75! I had to laugh when Rhonda stepped into the freezing water and let out a scream, probably shoulda warned her that pacific water isn't too warm in march...or ever lol :)

After the beach we enjoyed a ridiculously hilarious dinner at BJ's, full of much too much adult jokes that are wildly inappropriate but extremely funny.....I'll let you guess where it all started since you know where we ate....ha :) 

On day 2 of our trip we decided to go to Universal Studios since 6 Flags sucks and isn't open Monday-Friday.  I had never been, so I was excited, and it was totally cool!

the boys and their mummy, which made them even more stoked to ride their favorite ride of course!

please note that shrek is loving on josh's head

no lie, we rode this thing about 14 times, rob lost his glasses, and the hotel key.  (sidenote:  Rhonda was also ridiculous about her purse this entire day, i have never seen a woman so tightly hold a purse under her arm ever in my life, especially one with a zipper and a snap and straps that leave it perfectly placed in your armpit.  nor have i ever seen anyone test a purse locker for a ride so vigorously....)

After a full day of adventure at Universal we had a lovely dinner at Olive Garden where much laughter commenced, so much so that we even had our waitress giggling! It was at Olive Garden however that we discovered that Rob's debit card was missing, so of course we frantically searched through everything trying to find the dang thing.  I offered to help, but everyone was like "Don't touch my stuff!" I thought they were all just a bunch of weirdos....little did I know they were all secretly plotting together!

Then on Tuesday, it was FINALLY time for Disneyland!  We met up with Wendy, Curtis and their 2 kids, Jalen and Kyle to start the morning at the park.

Wendy decided that we should go to the Finding Nemo ride first since that one always has the longest line and it was already a 35 minute wait at 8:20 am.  I was excited to go because the last time I had been to Disneyland the ride was just 2 months shy of opening, and I loved the movie so much and the orginial submarine ride as a kid that I had to go on it at least once!

After a short trek back to the ride Wendy asked us to please stand in front of the sign so she could take our picture..........my first reaction was "OHH, they are one of THOSE families that takes photos at every ride they go on to document every FREAKING second of their Disneyland adventure. It's going to be a long day."  But I happily obliged since they allowed just the man and I to be in the first picture together, ALONE, which almost never happens, so i was pleased.  Then she says, "that one didn't turn out so good, let me get another!"  and Rob and Rhonda also pulled out cameras to get one on my camera too, very sweet.  So we get ready for take two, but JZ was no longer standing next to me, so I look over to my left where he had just been attached to me at the hip, and he was on a knee.....it took my tiny brain a moment to process, but once I realized he was on a knee with a sparkling thing in a box, you could say i freaked out.  I don't know that the next few pictures really need any words, cause they pretty much captured it frame by frame. ( we are still waiting on the video which Wendy has on her camera, i promise i will post it as soon as i snag it!)

take one

the "oh my gosh" freak out

"I love you! Will you marry me?"

"YES!"

seal it with a kiss!

still freaking out, but very happy

He sweetly told me he loved me and asked if i would marry him, to which i immediately replied yes! somehow though, i forgot the part about needing to put my hand out for him to put the ring on my finger, so while still on a knee he kindly says "hey babe, i kinda need your hand." since my hands were still stuck over my mouth.....oops.  whats a girl to do when you nearly give her a heart attack in the middle of a crowded Disneyland?!  I don't hardly remember it, but if you watch the video you can see lots of people in the line for the ride clapping and hollering, even the line attendant was like "WOO! way to go man!"  Unfortunately some oblivious people walked right through the video, but i think you can pretty much see all the action, so it's okay!  After all of that craziness, I learned that Rhonda had been hiding the ring in her purse since I had left to get groceries and Josh had refused to go with me......those stinkers, they got me good!  Lucky for josh he wore his cargo shorts that day, or i probably would have noticed the large lump on his thigh prior to the ride! (sidenote #2:  about the time i had my second round of mono, i guess he got the rings and showed my parents, so they knew what was up, and they were all praying that i would get better before the trip and that my hands would stop peeling so that i could wear the ring.  then about 3 weeks before we left, i was helping clean josh's room, when i moved some stuff into his closet that i thought was just another bag of stuff like he has in the corner of his room already, but he got SO mad at me and told me i shouldn't have moved anything and if i saw something and didn't tell him that i would be sorry for lying. needless to say, i was highly upset since all i did was nicely clean the corner of his room and his heavy accusations felt uncalled for.  i guess i had picked up the gift bag that on one side says "Michael's Creative Jewelry" which probably would have been a dead giveaway had i been paying any attention....oops :) good thing he's got a blonde!)

Everything after that was kinda a crazy big blur, but it was OH so wonderful.  We had always talked about doing a low-key sort of engagement, i didn't want to be on a jumbo tron at some game somewhere, Disneyland on Spring Break with like 3 million people wasn't exactly a jumbo tron but it was close! somehow though it was all lost in the fairytale moment.  i have my prince charming, in the happiest place on earth, and i couldn't be a luckier girl!  it was definitely more than a dream come true!  immediately after as we were boarding submarine for the ride, 8 year old Kyle asks me if all of that business meant we were now married. of course i told him, not yet, we will have to have a wedding first.  then i said, "will you come to our wedding?" and he says, "well, i don't know, will there be any cake?"  trying not to laugh i said, "yes we will have cake there" and he replies, "okay well since there's gonna be cake i'll probably come, but if there isn't any, then i might not be there." ha oh kids!

the rest of our trip was absolutely amazing and SO much fun! we had a blast!  our vacation could not have been any more amazing and could not have come at a more perfect time!  I love my Joshua so SO much and I'm so thankful that we are now on the path to married life!  As you can tell there is never a dull moment around here, so i'm sure the craziness will continue as we begin our new journey together.  The big day will be December 1st, 2011, exactly 3 years since we began dating.  It seemed rather fitting to continue with the second half of our journey where it all began.  We will have a giant party to celebrate on December 2nd, 2011 and we will go on a honeymoon cruise the week following.  I will do my very best to keep everyone updated with our new stories and adventures as we get closer to a wedding, there is all sorts of exciting stuff going on around here! And hopefully soon we will even have some engagement photos up after our photo shoot with Ms. Nicole Burt! 

XOXO smile on :)

my sick puppy

my poor man has the stomach flu bug :( this makes me very sad cause i super HATE it when he is hurting and i can do nothing to help him feel better.  he at least made it through a good chunk of church...but that didn't last long lol. poor guy.  he is a rather cute little puppy when he is sick, though it still makes me sad, but he is oh so sweet.  he is very grateful for anything and everything you do for him.  and he is THE biggest cuddlebug there is.  maybe it was just the fever, but humor me, cause i loved it.  he fell asleep on me during the movie and woke up and  was cuddly all over again.  oh i love him!  but he nearly made me cry when he gave me that sad puppy fever face and put his arms around my neck and asked me if i would please stay through the night to take care of him.....oh he knows just how to kill me.  then he said i was the best ever and asked me if i would marry him and stay with him forever. :) i hope he is feeling better tomorrow!  he and dad both managed to get the stomach flu, and we think that it may only be a 24 hour dealio, but we'll see tomorrow!
on another note-we went to rachel's wedding reception last night-i am glad the boy went with even though he reeeaaaly didn't want to, but he is sweet and loving so he does :) it was a cute little reception and i am happy for them!
i hope everyone had a lovely weekend...filled with much less sickness!

proud girlfriend moment

okay, so this is probably gonna sound mushy and lovey...and well it sort of is in a way, but i just wanna take a moment to talk about my man. um yeah, you should probably get used to it or quit reading this blog since he is a rather LARGE part of my wonderful little life, and you will be hearing about him-OFTEN. i would also  just like to say that this post may sound mean in some ways, but i don't in any way mean to sound that way, so just a heads up.
so anyway....
we knew that there were going to be some big adjustments when the man decided to come home, which didn't really worry me much, i worried more about him.  one of my biggest worries was the lifestyle adjustment for the man, not to sound snotty, but he has been rather well cared for and to so DRASTICALLY change everything can be hard on anyone, especially those who are going through so much inner stress and turmoil. my biggest fear was the adjustment in lifestyle would make him regret his decision, i thought that adjusting from fulltime practice and school to fulltime work, and hard labor no less, would be overwhelming for him, especially since he has just been a fulltime athlete forever and has never had to wake up and go to work everyday.  but boy was i wrong.  he was so ready for this change, even more ready than i thought he would be.  he is even more ready than i was.  he wanted this so much more than any of us could have ever expected. and in these new changes, i have a newfound respect for my love.  he is so much stronger and more courages than i ever could be.  i am SO very proud of him.  he gets up and goes to work everyday at 5:30.  he works in a job with guys who are his complete opposites, and yet, he still has a good attitude, makes new friends.  he's even already moved up on the payscale in just 2 weeks.  to think i ever doubted that he could changeover so quickly makes me almost a little sad.  i should never have doubted that he knew all along what he wanted and what it would cost him.  it hit me today that this was so much bigger than what i originally saw with my little eyes.  i take so many things for granted and tend to be so naive.  but he obviously needed this so much that he was willing to sacrifice EVERYTHING. i don't know that even i could do that, but my joshua bear gave up his car, his freedom, his nicer lifestyle, all the things he's accustomed to, to come home and do what he needs to.  i am so amazed by him, even more now than before. and each day he continues to amaze me.  that boy is so very determined to DO on his own, and he has surpassed every expectation my narrow mind had set.
i am so very blessed to have such a strong man in my life, and i don't mean strength as in physical, though i won't lie, he is rather attractive with his big muscles. but seriously, he is so incredible. and i am so very lucky.  he teaches me new things everyday and opens my eyes to how much bigger the world is.  i can't believe that i'm the lucky one who gets to be with him.  and he is so humble about how awesome he truly is, so i make up for his humbleness by boasting and bragging about him here.  hopefully he won't mind....but who really knows since he hasn't yet discovered that this thing exists. but i don't really care, because my man deserves to know how much i truly love and appreciate him, since i can rarely find the words to get it out right.  i love you joshua!

hello 2011, what do you bring?

well that time has come again to begin a new year. i'm excited, but a little apprehensive to be completely honest. there is always so much uncertainty....even though i trust that everything will all work and out and be great, there is always that fear in the back of your mind.  though i am usually a lover of change, lately i have been a little shy, though i have no real reason to be. i think maybe it is largely due to overwhelming amounts of stress.....

tonight i shall spend the evening with my man, doing nothing but enjoying each other, i am rather excited since this is a new opportunity for us. and we are loving it.  i am sure that this new year will bring us many of these great opportunities since he is now a resident of the desert once again.  last night we went on a rare date night. it was glorious, even in all of its goofy simplicity.  he is a very sweet and thoughtful guy. i am very lucky that is for sure.

though i am very unsure about what 2011 will bring us, i do know that we will make it through it and enjoy most of every minute of it. i have not hated 2010, though there was much unpleasantness in parts of it, there were also so many wonderful things about it.  but 2011 is looking much better and brighter....so far anyway lol.

i am excited about the potential for great things in 2011, there will be much opportunity to grow in business and hopefully better our futures.  it will not be an easy road that is for sure, since there will be much financial burden due to our current situation, but i think it will prove to be a great learning opportunity and many life lessons will be shared and hopefully overcome.

i'm not one for new years resolutions usually, i feel that you don't need a calender change over to a new year to have change for the better, but i do have a few things that i would like to improve on, and the first of the year seems like a great place to start those things.  some of these things include, better blogging, a positive attitude (which is proving to be a difficult one amongst the stress and annoyances of late, esp. the upcoming wedding situations which i don't want to deal with cause i'm feeling like its all very much unfair at the moment even though i shouldn't), more work, better saving, more learning, going to school and completing classes, finding new ways to love, spending lots of time with my man,  keeping things very clean and organized, being better about trusting in the Lord and finding new ways to let things go.  i'm sure there will be many more things i find to work on, but those are standing out most in my mind at the moment.  i would say i should also work on building better relationships with others, but right now that is a issue that has left me rather burned or scarred and i'm not particularly interested in that right at this moment, maybe with a little bit of time i will feel like that is doable again. 

i hope everyone has a safe and happy new year, i hope new opportunities will come, dreams will come true, much love will find you, and that there will be more happiness than tears.  i love the people in my life and cannot wait to share the new adventures of a new year with all of those who are sharing this crazy journey that is life.

Happy New Year everyone! 2011 here we come!

2 years

Yes, I do realize that this is december 13th and this post is 3 weeks late, but it has been a little crazy- so this post is dedicated to my love. On december 1st we officially hit the 2 year mark. And its kinda unbelievable to be honest! This has certainly been a crazy few years with all sorts of ups and downs. But they have all been so worth it! He is definitely pretty awesome to have such an awesome man. I am so very lucky to have him in my life, still don't know how I got him, but I love that I do :) thank you joshua zahn for an awesome two years, and I can't wait for many many more! I love you!

Birmingham Surprise Trip Day 4

i think that Monday may have been the best day of the whole trip, even though it meant that i only had a half day left with my man. we met up rather early, instead of sleeping the whole day away and had some breakfast, then we decided that we were gonna go back to the Birmingham Zoo, just the two of us and spend as much time as we wanted! i only had my white long sleeve shirt this day because i'd worn all of my others, and wouldn't you know it-it was supposed to rain ALL day-thank goodness it was only a light sprinkle and that i had a black jacket to wear over! it had rained heavy early in the morning but it just continued to lightly sprinkle from like 11 to 3! we got to the zoo a little after 11 and there was NO ONE there. literally. we decided to hit all of the exhibits cause we had more time this time, and when we went to the "barn" which is the petting zoo, the girl inside said we were the first visitors they had seen all day! crazy! but we loved it cause there was no one and we could spend as much time as we wanted! i have no pictures of the two of us of course, but i do have quite a few of joshua playing with the animals! we walked the entire zoo and even got lost trying to find the "predator zone", but eventually we found it, but of course everyone was indoors because of the rain! several animals did make a quick appearance, so that was nice! and the lion came out twice and gave us several loud roars! josh really wanted to see the tigers but they were sleeping inside and never came out :( such a bummer! but we had SO much fun together! it was one of THE best dates we have ever had! and we decided that in december for our 2 years we will go to the Phoenix Zoo cause the weather will be gorgeous! and i just found out yesterday that they actually have koalas for a limited time til march! hooray!!!! joshua made me laugh the entire day with all of his funny voices and comments about the animals! the best one nearly killed me cause i couldn't breathe due to the fact that i was laughing so hard! towards the end of our day in the zoo we went to the reptile exhibits-it was a warm and toasty building so i appreciated it! the desert tortoise exhibit made us both laugh because they have like a jungle scene painted on the wall, a rock, a tortoise and a bunch of wood chips for the ground-ummmmm yeah lol guess they've never seen a REAL desert tortoise in its habitat! anyways so we oohed and aahed at the pythons and lizards etc, then we came to the komodo dragon room. when we went on saturday it was sleeping, but this day it was wide awake and running around its little home, we watched cause we thought it was way cool since we haven't seen one very active before, and it passes in front of us on it's way to the other side of its large cage, and just as it passes in front of joshua it totally craps right in the middle of the exhibit, and as if it wasn't goofy and funny enough, without any hesitation josh turns and says, "well, i can check that off my life list now...." and walks into the other room without even looking back. i nearly DIED it was so funny-it was so totally unexpected and random for him to say, but i loved it-he is such a funny man! and so quick with his humor! gotta love the boy! after the zoo we went to Moe's- it is delish. you should go there too. i always eat too much there, but it is just so yummy! not super cheap, but super yummy so it's worth the indulgence at least once a week i think-i know it will be a regular spot for the joshmeister and i. after our delicious lunch (at 3pm lol) we went to the store to get all of the things i needed to make enchilada casserole (josh's favorite-and now jesse's too lol) and ooey gooey bars (another favorite of the boys). i ended up making 3 casseroles (yes full 9x13 casseroles) and 3 ooey gooey bars (yes also 9x13 pans). i was SO tired and hot after spending forever in the kitchen! but the boys were helpful and it turned out yummy! we had lots of fun eating it together! and then the boys each whisked their own pans off to their fridges for leftovers so no one else in the dorm could steal it lol. jesse called on my birthday and told me to come back and make more cause he was out-and that i should move soon so i can cook more often :) silly boys-but they do love a home cooked meal! after dinner we all decided to watch a movie and i did some of joshua's laundry! and then we decided to have our ooey gooey bars for dessert and made ourselves miserable with all of the sweetness!

My Love, The Stud

So anyone reading this blog obviously already knows that I love Joshua and that is pretty much enough of an explanation for this posting as far as I'm concerned!  My handsome man is the kicker for the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and I would say he does his job well.  Yesterday UAB played UT- for those of you non-footballers, that would be the University of Tennessee (yes they are a fairly large school, and yes you often see them on tv, but who cares?).  So my handsome man did not have such a good game yesterday, and has been pretty down because of it, which is natural of course, but I happen to strongly dislike it because I hate it when he's hurting and I can't fix it for him.  And after games like yesterday, I pretty much feel like I have the award for "terrible girlfriend of the year" because I am across the country and not available to cheer him up with a hug and a kiss. Mushy? Maybe, but hey, I love him!  Somedays I wish he truly new just how special he is, but it seems that words can never fully convey that message.  None of his teammates blame him for their loss, and his coaches still have incredible confidence in him.  And he has incredible support here at home from his friends and famil-oh and me :) I'll probably be in trouble for this at some point, but I am going to claim it anyway: I am and always will be Joshua Zahn's number one fan and supporter in everything he does-especially football cause I love it regardless of the outcome (though I do prefer to win, and I much prefer shut out games because they are less likely to give me a heart attack, which I'm sure is well on its way since I'm pretty sure my blood pressure rises to like 800 when I watch any game, especially those that JZ is participating in! Part of me prays that he will not one day choose the NFL just for fear that my poor little heart will explode :) )  Though I think he is probably not aware, I look up to and admire him SO very much.  He definitely has a courage and strength that I wish to someday possess.  Regardless of the toughness of a situation, he always finds a way to pull through it and come out better in the end.  He is his biggest critic, so I know that next week he will come back bigger, better and stronger and learn from the mistakes of last week.  I am so incredibly proud of him.  He works so hard to be the best he can be.  He is so selfless and incredibly loving.  Moreso than most people that I know, even when he really doesn't have to be-for example, with me, especially when I'm a butthead and cause more stress in his life than is necessary cause i'm being a dumbo!  He is definitely wise beyond his years-which sometimes I hate cause he points out things that I never think of and he makes me reevaluate them, but he's usually right (don't tell him I said that)!  He has an amazing since of humor and NEVER fails to make me laugh in a day.  He can make any situation positive, he can make any bad day better and best of all he loves me just for me, all my weirdness and faults and even the freckles on my nose (which I happen to loathe with the deepest part of my being).  Though I'm sure many other girls who have a man would claim they are the luckiest girls, I'm pretty sure that I have one this contest over so don't even bother trying to top me, cause I'm pretty sure I'll win regardless of what you might say!  I am definitely incredibly blessed to have been given the gift of Joshua in my life, I won't doubt that any day.  I don't quite know what I did to deserve such an amazing man to love me forever, but I am certainly not going to question the big man upstairs and his decision making! (partially for fear that maybe He'll check his records and say, "uh, actually i meant to send him to someone else that day" and rearrange history, which I'm pretty sure can never happen, but still.....not risking it!)  If you are ever reading this Joshua, I hope you know how much I truly love you with everything that I am.  Thank you for making my life so wonderful, for bringing smiles and laughter and showing me true, real, and unconditional love like I have never known before.  You are more than I deserve and better than anything I could have imagined happening in my life. :)
Now enough mushy lovey stuff cause I'm sure everyone is totally over it by now! :) smile a little smile today and tell someone you love them too!

xoxo,
Aly

p.s. Here's a picture of my stud in uniform, courtesy of al.com-for those of you who care, that's Birmingham's local newspaper website!